R&T's Douglass Kott spent some time tooling around in a pre-production prototype and, from what he wrote over at Road & Track, it sounds like he pushed it pretty hard.

"I'm accelerating and cornering - hard - on three wheels, little wisps of tire smoke curling out of the slender front wheel pants as steering is cranked in and 'throttle' applied," he writes. Kott doesn't offer any details or specs on the drivetrain or performance, but Aptera says the 2e will do zero to 60 in less than 10 seconds and hit a top speed of 90 mph.

OK, so that's not impressive - on paper. Behind the wheel and it's another story. Kott says the 2e is "responsive, easily modulated and reasonably quick." No surprise, given that electric motors provide all of their torque instantaneously. What is somewhat surprising is how well the car handles.

"Flinging it around the streets near Aptera's headquarters, it seems quicker still, partly due to a go-kart-like agility that's carried off with a surprisingly civil ride," Kott writes. There's no power assist for the steering or brakes, but Kott says you'll never notice. That's due in part to the fact the composite-bodied 2e weighs just 1,700 pounds - about 1,000 pounds less than a Honda Civic (and comparable to the first-gen Honda CRX HF).

Despite its low weight and small size, Kott says the 2e is comfortable and reasonably roomy, falling somewhere between a Lotus Elise and a Toyota Corolla. As for safety, Kott says eight Aptera Motors stood on the roof of a 2e that had already undergone federal crash testing and it was none the worse for wear.

As for the company, Aptera says its received 4,000 deposits for the 2e, including one from Robin Williams. As for the guys running the show, chief engineer Tom Reichenbach was vehicle engineering manager for the Ford GT and Shelby GT500 programs, and CEO Paul Wilbur has done stints at Ford and Chrysler, so they know a thing or two about building cars.